Michael W. Simpson, Ph.D.

Author of  The Planetary Mind

Michael Simpson was born in Oregon in 1951. His father's work as a lumberman in the northwest mills took them all across the western states. By the time he was 21 he'd lived in half a dozen states. Over the years he has lived in ten, and traveled through every state in the Union. He has also lived and worked in half a dozen countries, including the Marshall Islands, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, France and Iceland, and has been around the world.

He received his A.A. Degree from American River College, in Sacramento, California in 1972, where he began his teaching career as an undergraduate assistant in Music. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Viet Nam era. On return from overseas he used his G.I. Bill to earn his Bachelor of General Studies Degree in Written Communications from the University of South Carolina in 1974. He studied with writers in the east such as James Dickey, George Garrett, Anne Sexton, and James Wright. He began his graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the Communications department, but finished his Master of Fine Arts in English/ Creative Writing under poet Ralph Salisbury, at the University of Oregon in 1983. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he further pursued his interest in esoteric studies with Swami Muktananda, Kirpal Singh, Yogi Baghan and in the Native American Church. He completed his formal education as an East-West Center scholar at the University of Hawaii, with a Ph. D. in American Studies in 1990, having received many scholarships, awards, and accolades.

He began teaching as a guitar and writing tutor in 1972, during his second year of college. He taught at every level from day care through high school as an American Indian Cultural Consultant in the Coos County Indian Education Programs, in the coastal Oregon school system, from 1980-85. Over those years he was also trained formally as a fire tender for the sweat lodge ceremony. He went on to become an instructor and lecturer at the university level in 1988, and Assistant Professor of English and American Indian Studies in 1990, at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, Washington. In 1995 he moved on to work as as international Visiting Professor in History and English for the University of Maryland, University College Overseas Programs for five years. On his return to the U.S. he completed his teaching career, in 2002, with Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii and went into real estate.

He made more than a million dollars in four years restoring properties and selling them. Once money was no longer a consideration he returned to his original love and work as a writer, artist and musician. Above all other occuaptions he values being a working artist. He has published two books of poetry, more than a hundred newspaper and periodical articles, a book on Native American Pottery, and dozens of encyclopedia articles on various subjects. His pottery, sculpture and water colors have been sold into collections in eight states. As a hobby he breeds exotic domestic animals, focusing on hairless Sphinx cats for the last several years. He also made four studio albums, plays a half dozen musical instruments and is preparing to record his final guitar album. He has been restoring cars since his teens and still does that for family members as a sideline.

He has now retired to New Mexico to continue writing and to promote the Planetary Mind. These days he mostly works on his house, cars, and guitars. He has a book of poetry and two novels ready for market. His reading these days focuses on how quantum field mechanical processes, genetics, and spoken language are related as communications systems.


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